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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23864725">before the yellow fades to blue</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectteeth/pseuds/perfectteeth'>perfectteeth</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>My Chemical Romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Drug Use, M/M, i swear i love gerard im just mean to him, revenge era-ish</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:54:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,104</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23864725</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectteeth/pseuds/perfectteeth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He wept like holy water, a rosary of tears down his sternum, and Mikey always imagined bottling them, taking a taste, just to see if it would burn like acid the way it did sinners in the films.</p><p>help the girls are fighting</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Frank Iero/Gerard Way, Gerard Way/Mikey Way</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>before the yellow fades to blue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>another very short fic i wrote very late at night</p><p>im not entirely sure if i’m happy with this but i needed to get it out of my head and into the void so here you go</p><p>title from paradise lost by the used</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You’re a sick bastard.”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Gerard smiled in hushed tones, more of a cocked brow than anything, his eyes hooded in that breed of exhaustion that can only come self inflicted, sunken in hollows that read like a track mark, and he shifted from the couch, standing, as if to prove he still had it in him.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The two of them only fought when they were fucked up, really. Or at least, when <em>Frank</em> was fucked up they fought, always started with shots and ended up in a screaming match. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Frank was easy to rile, had been since they met, canines bared with the drop of a pin, but he didn’t fight unprovoked. And no matter how Gerard postured at the end of the night, curled up in a bunk licking his wounds, Mikey knew his brother. He had a way of angling for conflict.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Oh? Tell me more.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It was dark in the bus. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">They always kept the lights off, hated the shitty fluorescents. Hated the bus, maybe, or at least Mikey did, even if it was technically a step up from the van, even if it had beds, had couches. It was too big, made everything too real. Felt like the hand-me-downs he used to get from their cousins, shoes you’re supposed to grow into someday, but for now you’re swimming in them, tripping over your own feet.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Gerard lit a cigarette, which could mean a few things; on a base level, he needed a fix. Or, he was performing confidence as a shield, something he’d seen in movies, something that made him seem above it all, the anti-hero leaning back into the shadows as the heroine sobs, black tar filtering through his teeth. And, more likely, he needed something to do with his hands, which were directly tied to his voice box in a way comes with a childhood of desperate convincing. Frank scoffed.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Maybe it should have been strange for Mikey to be there. All things considered, it was; this wasn’t his argument, he didn’t fit into whatever the two of them were, thought they might be. But he’d sat through all of their fights, a fly on the wall, watching and waiting for Frank to storm out so he could clean up the fallout. At a certain point, probably when they were children, it became even stranger for Gerard to have intimate conversations without Mikey beside him. It was one of their many mirrored habits that just existed without discussion.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You- You use people, you know that? You used me. I <em>feel </em>used.”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Gerard exhaled at that, something close to a laugh, and ashed onto the linoleum beneath them. If Mikey squinted hard enough, tilted his head just right, he could see the words rolling around in Gerards head, watch him sift through his mind to find the perfect phrasing as they bickered mindlessly, back and forth, something they hoped was chess but looked more like table tennis. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Mikey didn’t really listen, anyway. He didn’t have to. It was always the exact same fight playing out through different substances, but then Frank was getting in Gerards space, edging him up against the wall, snarling and doing his best attempt at fearful. It made him look scared.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“That’s the fucking problem with you, isn’t it? You- you wrap people around your fingertips, drag them close enough to kill, but you don’t fucking let them in. Not really. You suck people dry and never let yourself bleed, and why is that, Gerard? Is it because you’re scared?” A pause. Dramatic effect, zoom in, spotlight, strings swell, the final climax and the audience gasps- “Or is it because they’re not him?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Gerard actually smiled at that. A wide, toothy grin, disorientingly earnest in the way only Gerard could be, something he reserved for interviewers, for family reunions, for guys in bands. And that seemed to be enough confirmation for Frank, enough of whatever threads he still needed, because he sighed defeatedly and stepped away from Gerard, shaky hands carding through his mohawk. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’ll see you at soundcheck.”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Mikey wasn’t sure when Frank actually left, wasn’t exactly paying attention, but at some point he felt the couch dip beside him with the weight of his brother, the smell of mildew and cigarettes that the two of them shared mingling with body spray he didn’t recognize. Gerard dipped his head, cross legged and barefoot, and set his forehead against Mikey’s shoulder, sighing exhaustedly. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">In these moments, Gerard became 16, huddled in Mikey’s twin bed after a particularly bad trip, a nightmare, running his mouth about the terrors he’d seen. He was young and raw, sensitive to the fucking bone marrow, clawing at Mikey’s shirt and begging to be saved as if the basement were a church, this bed a confessional, Mikey his vicar. He wept like holy water, a rosary of tears down his sternum, and Mikey always imagined bottling them, taking a taste, just to see if it would burn like acid the way it did sinners in the films.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">But he didn’t really cry anymore. Just took shallow, shaking breaths, squeezing Mikey’s hand hard enough to grind his bones, eyes shut as if he were walking through a haunted house. They sat there in silence, slowly tangling closer as they always did. Hands, chests, legs, arms, foreheads pressed together, until they were tied up in each other like a colony of rats weaving their tails into one mass.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“He’s right, yeah Mikes? He’s right?”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Gerard didn’t need to ask questions like that anymore. Their weird brand of telepathy took care of that for him, but Mikey got it, of course he did. Thought of himself and Pete, Gerard and Bert, thought of Frank. Frank, who was more like family than anything else, and there was no way Gerard took pleasure in tearing him up like that, he just. Didn’t know how not to. The way brothers, starving for affection but at the same time incapable of sharing, because it was never the same. How could anyone compare?</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">So Mikey pressed a kiss into Gerard’s hairline, then his browbone, his jaw. He hoped that was enough of a reply, because he didn’t have words anymore. Didn’t think language could convey all of the things he felt. He’d always thought they were immortal, the two of them, but with every day they lived, every piece of paint that got chipped away, Mikey got the feeling they were lost at sea, maybe. No maps or lighthouses, just an endless ocean.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">That was fine. That would be fine. They just needed to figure out how to swim.</span>
</p>
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